GSD Giant
Sunday 2nd September 2012 Goodwood, West Sussex. A charity sportive in the heart of the South Downs National Park. More here
AGSD-UK Annual Conference 2012 Bedfordshire

A date for your diary - Sat 29 and Sun 30 September. A fabulous location for a great weekend. More details.

Cochrane Reviews on McArdle disease

Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of primary research in human health care and health policy. They explore the evidence for and against the effectiveness and appropriateness of treatments (medications, surgery, education, etc).

 

 

Pharmacological and nutritional treatment for McArdle disease

This is the best source of information about whether or not any particular pharmacological or nutritional treatment is effective. The review was prepared by Dr Ros Quinlivan (UK), Dr Andrea Martinuzzi (Italy) and Dr Benedikt Schoser (Germany).

The review's conclusions for clinical practice are: "Although there was low quality evidence of significant improvement in some parameters with low-dose creatine, oral sucrose, a carbohydrate-rich diet and ramipril, none was sufficient to indicate significant clinical benefit."

Originally prepared in 2004, the review was last revised and assessed as up to date as at July 2010. You may download the full review or access it on line.

 

 

Physical training for McArdle disease

This is a Review on physical training published in December 2011. The objective of the review was to systematically assess the evidence for physical training to improve exercise capacity and function in daily life in people who have McArdle Disease. The editors are Dr Ros Quinlivan (London, UK), Dr John Vissing (Denmark), Dr David Hilton-Jones (Oxford, UK), and Dr John Buckley (Chester, UK).

Whilst anecdotally we know that in clinical situations McArdle people can improve greatly through regular aerobic exercise, the review found that there was not yet sufficiently robust scientific evidence. The key finding was that further studies would be safe to conduct:

"Implications for practice - The results of small numbers of subjects in three non-randomlsed studies suggest that aerobic training is safe for people with McArdle disease; however, there is no evidence from randomised controlled trials for therapeutic benefit of aerobic exercise.

Implications for research - The proof of principle studies described in the discussion of this review suggest that it would be worthwhile to undertake randomised controlled trials of aerobic training and that such studies would be safe to perform."